Southern Conferences. Both Northern and Southern members
voted for this resolution.
After this was passed, the conscience of many Northern minis-
ters was aroused, and they called for a reconsideration. The
Southern members imperiously demanded that it should remain
as a compromise and test of union. The spirit of the discussion
may be inferred from one extract.
Mr. Peck, of New York, who moved the reconsideration of the
resolution, thus expressed himself:--
That resolution (said he) was introduced under peculiar circumstances, during
considerable excitement, and he went for it as a peace-offering to the South, with-
out sufficiently reflecting upon the precise import of its phraseology; but, after a
little deliberation, he was sorry; and he had been sorry but once, and that was all
the time; he was convinced that, if that resolution remain upon the journal, it
would be disastrous to the whole Northern church.
Rev. Dr. A. J. Few, of Georgia, the mover of the original
resolution, then rose. The following are extracts from his
speech. The italics are my own:--
Look at it! What do you declare to us, in taking this course? Why, simply, as
much as to say, “We cannot sustain you in the condition which you cannot
avoid!” We cannot sustain you in the necessary conditions of slaveholding;
one of its necessary conditions being the rejection of negro testimony! If it is
not sinful to hold slaves, under all circumstances, it is not sinful to hold them in
the only condition, and under the only circumstances, which they can be held. The
rejection of negro testimony is one of the necessary circumstances under which
slaveholding can exist--indeed, it is utterly impossible for it to exist without it;
therefore it is not sinful to hold slaves in the condition and under the circum-
stances which they are held at the South, inasmuch as they can be held under no
other circumstances.* * * If you believe that slaveholding is necessarily sinful,
come out with the abolitionists, and honestly say so. If you believe that slave-
holding is necessarily sinful, you believe we are necessarily sinners; and, if so,
come out and honestly declare it, and let us leave you. * * * We want to
know distinctly, precisely and honestly, the position which you take. We cannot
be tampered with by you any longer. We have had enough of it. We are
tired of your sickly sympathies. * * * If you are not opposed to the prin-
ciples which it involves, unite with us, like honest men, and go home, and boldly
meet the consequences. We say again, you are responsible for this state of things;
for it is you who have driven us to the alarming point where we find ourselves.
* * * You have made that resolution absolutely necessary to the quiet of the
South! But you now revoke that resolution! And you pass the Rubicon!
Let me not be misunderstood. I say, you pass the Rubicon! If you revoke,
you revoke the principle which that resolution involves, and you array the
whole South against you, and we must separate! * * * If you accord
to the principles which it involves, arising from the necessity of the case,
stick by it, “though the heavens perish!” But if you persist on reconsideration,
I ask in what light will your course be regarded in the South? What will be the
conclusion, there, in reference to it? Why, that you cannot sustain us as long as
we hold slaves! It will declare, in the face of the sun, “We cannot sustain you,
gentlemen, while you retain your slaves!” Your opposition to the resolution is
based upon your opposition to slavery; you cannot, therefore, maintain your con-
sistency unless you come out with the abolitionists, and condemn us at once and
for ever, or else refuse to reconsider.
The resolution was, therefore, left in force, with another reso-
lution appended to it, expressing the undiminished regard of the
General Conference for the coloured population.
It is quite evident that it was undiminished, for the best
of reasons. That the coloured population were not properly
impressed with this last act of condescension, appears from the
fact that “the official members of the Sharp-street and Ashby
Coloured Methodist Church in Baltimore” protested and
petitioned against the motion. The following is a passage from
their address:--
The adoption of such a resolution, by our highest ecclesiastical judicatory--a judi-
catory composed of the most experienced and wisest brethren in the church, the
choice selection of twenty-eight Annual Conferences--has inflicted, we fear, an
irreparable injury upon 80,000 souls for whom Christ died--souls, who, by this
act of your body, have been stripped of the dignity of Christians, degraded in the
scale of humanity, and treated as criminals, for no other reason than the colour of
their skin! Your resolution has, in our humble opinion, virtually declared that a
mere physical peculiarity, the handiwork of our all-wise and benevolent Creator, is
primá facie evidence of incompetency to tell the truth, or is an unerring indication
of unworthiness to bear testimony against a fellow-being whose skin is denominated
white: * * * Brethren, out of the abundance of the heart we have spoken. Our
grievance is before you! If you have any regard for the salvation of the 80,000
immortal souls committed to your care; if you would not thrust beyond the pale
of the church twenty-five hundred souls in this city, who have felt determined
never to leave the church that has nourished and brought them up; if you regard
us as children of one common Father, and can, upon reflection, sympathise with us
as members of the body of Christ--if you would not incur the fearful, the tremen-
dous responsibility of offending not only one, but many thousands of his “little
ones,” we conjure you to wipe from your journal the odious resolution which is
ruining our people.
“A Coloured Baltimorean,” writing to the editor of Zion's
Watchman, says:--
The address was presented to one of the secretaries, a delegate of the Baltimore
Conference, and subsequently given by him to the bishops. How many of the
members of the Conference saw it, I know not. One thing is certain, it was not
read to the Conference.
With regard to the second head--of defending the laws which
prevent the slave from being taught to read and write--we have
the following instance:--
In the year 1835, the Chillicothe Presbytery, Ohio, addressed
a Christian remonstrance to the presbytery of Mississippi on the
subject of slavery, in which they specifically enumerated the
respects in which they considered it to be unchristian. The
eighth resolution was as follows:--
That any member of our church, who shall advocate or speak in favour of such
laws as have been or may yet be enacted, for the purpose of keeping the slaves in
ignorance, and preventing them from learning to read the Word of God, is guilty
of a great sin, and ought to be dealt with as for other scandalous crimes.
This remonstrance was answered by Rev. James Smylie, stated
clerk of the Mississippi Presbytery, and afterwards of the Amity
Presbytery of Louisiana, in a pamphlet of eighty-seven pages, in
which he defended slavery generally and particularly, in the
same manner in which all other abuses have always been de-
fended--by the word of God. The tenth section of this
pamphlet is devoted to the defence of this law. He devotes
seven pages of fine print to this object. He says (p. 63):--
There are laws existing in both States, Mississippi and Louisiana, accompanied
with heavy penal sanctions, prohibiting the teaching of the slaves to read, and
meeting the approbation of the religious part of the reflecting community.
* * * * *
He adds, still further:
The laws preventing the slaves from learning to read are a fruitful source of
much ignorance and immorality among the slaves. The printing, publishing, and
circulating of abolition and emancipatory principles in those States, was the cause
He then goes on to say that the ignorance and vice which are
the consequence of those laws do not properly belong to those
who made the laws, but to those whose emancipating doctrines
rendered them necessary. Speaking of these consequences of
ignorance and vice, he says:--
Upon whom must they be saddled? If you will allow me to answer the
question, I will answer by saying, Upon such great and good men as John Wesley,
Jonathan Edwards, Bishop Porteus, Paley, Horsley, Scott, Clark, Wilberforce,
Sharpe, Clarkson, Fox, Johnson, Burke, and other great and good men, who, with-
out examining the Word of God, have concluded that it is a true maxim that
slavery is in itself sinful.
He then illustrates the necessity of these laws by the following
simile. He supposes that the doctrine had been promulgated
that the authority of parents was an unjust usurpation, and that
it was getting a general hold of society; that societies were
being formed for the emancipation of children from the control
of their parents; that all books were beginning to be pervaded
by this sentiment; and that, under all these influences, children
were becoming restless and fractious. He supposes that,
under these circumstances, parents meet and refer the subject to
legislators. He thus describes the dilemma of the legislators:--
These meet, and they take the subject seriously and solemnly into consideration.
On the one hand, they perceive that, if their children had access to these doctrines,
they were ruined for ever. To let them have access to them was unavoidable, if they
taught them to read. To prevent their being taught to read was cruel, and would
prevent them from obtaining as much knowledge of the laws of Heaven as otherwise
they might enjoy. In this sad dilemma, sitting and consulting in a legislative capa-
city, they must, of two evils, choose the least. With indignant feelings towards
those who, under the influence of “seducing spirits,” had sent, and were sending
among them, “doctrines of devils,” but with aching hearts towards their children,
they resolved that their children should not be taught to read, until the storm
should be overblown; hoping that Satan's being let loose will be but for a little
season. And during this season they will have to teach them orally, and thereby
guard against their being contaminated by these wicked doctrines.
So much for that law.
Now, as for the internal slave-trade. The very essence of
that trade is the buying and selling of human beings for the
mere purposes of gain.
A master who has slaves transmitted to him, or a master who
buys slaves with the purpose of retaining them on his plantation
or in his family, can be supposed to have some object in it
besides the mere purpose of gain. He may be supposed, in
certain cases, to have some regard to the happiness or well-being
of the slave. The trader buys and sells for the mere purpose of
gain.
Concerning this abuse the Chillicothe Presbytery, in the
document to which we have alluded, passed the following
resolution:--
Resolved, That the buying, selling, or holding of a slave, for the sake of gain, is a
heinous sin and scandal, requiring the cognisance of the judicatories of the church.
In the reply from which we have already quoted, Mr. Smylie
says (p. 13):--
If the buying, selling, and holding of a slave for the sake of gain, is, as you say, a
heinous sin and scandal, then verily three-fourths of all Episcopalians, Methodists,
Baptists, and Presbyterians, in the eleven States of the Union, are of the devil.
* * * * * * * *
Again:--
To question whether slaveholders or slave-buyers are of the devil, seems to me
like calling in question whether God is or is not a true witness; that is, provided it
is God's testimony, and not merely the testimony of the Chillicothe Presbytery, that
it is a “heinous sin and scandal” to buy, sell, and hold slaves.
Again (p. 21):--
If language can convey a clear and definite meaning at all, I know not how it
can more plainly or unequivocally present to the mind any thought or idea, than
the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus clearly and unequivocally establishes the fact
that slavery was sanctioned by God himself, and that buying, selling, holding, and
bequeathing slaves, as property, are regulations which are established by himself.
* * * * * *
but that, to say the least, he gave a written permit to the Hebrews, then the best
people in the world, to buy, hold, and bequeath, men and women, to perpetual ser-
vitude? What, now, becomes of the position of the Chillicothe Presbytery?
* * * Is it, indeed, a fact that God once gave a written permission to his
own dear people [“ye shall buy”] to do that which is in itself sinful? Nay, to do
that which the Chillicothe Presbytery says “is a heinous sin and scandal?”
* * * * * *
God resolves that his own children may, or rather “shall,” “buy, possess, and
hold,” bond-men and bond-women, in bondage, for ever. But the Chillicothe
Presbytery resolves that “buying, selling, or holding slaves, for the sake of gain,
is a heinous sin and scandal.”
We do not mean to say that Mr. Smylie had the internal
slave-trade directly in his mind in writing these sentences; but
we do say that no slave-trader would ask for a more explict
justification of his trade than this.
Lastly, in regard to that dissolution of the marriage relation,
which is the necessary consequence of this kind of trade, the
following decisions have been made by judicatories of the
church.
The Savannah River (Baptist) Association, in 1835, in reply
to the question--
Whether, in a case of involuntary separation of such a character as to pre-
clude all prospect of future intercourse, the parties ought to be allowed to
marry again?
answered, That such a separation, among persons situated as our slaves are, is civilly a
separation by death, and they believe that, in the sight of God, it would be so
viewed. To forbid second marriages, in such cases, would
be to expose the
parties, not only to stronger hardships and strong temptation, but to church cen-
sure, for acting in obedience to their masters, who cannot be expected to ac-
quiesce in a regulation at variance with justice to the slaves, and to the spirit of
that command which regulates marriage among Christians. The slaves are not
free agents, and a dissolution by death is not more entirely without their consent,
and beyond their control, than by such separation.
At the Shiloh Baptist Association, which met at Gourdvine,
a few years since, the following query, says the “Religious
Herald,” was presented from Hedgman church, viz.:
Is a servant, whose husband or wife has been sold by his or her master, into
a distant country, to be permitted to marry again?
The query was referred to a committee, who made the fol-
lowing report; which, after discussion, was adopted:
That, in view of the circumstances in which servants in this country are placed,
the committee are unanimous in the opinion that it is better to permit servants
thns circumstanced to take another husband or wife.
The Reverend Charles C. Jones, who was an earnest and
indefatigable labourer for the good of the slave, and one who, it
would be supposed, would be likely to feel strongly on this
subject, if any one would, simply remarks, in estimating the
moral condition of the negroes, that, as husband and wife are
subject to all the vicissitudes of property, and may be separated
by division of estate, debts, sales, or removals, &c., &c., the
marriage relation naturally loses much of its sacredness; and
says:
It is a contract of convenience, profit or pleasure, that may be entered into and
dissolved at the will of the parties, and that without heinous sin, or injury to the
property interests of any one.
In this sentence he is expressing, as we suppose, the common idea of slaves and masters of the nature of this institution, and
not his own. We infer this from the fact that he endeavours in
his catechism to impress on the slave the sacredness and